Get Started

After installing it, run mqttx on the terminal.

Quick Start

Connect

mqttx conn -h 'broker.emqx.io' -p 1883 -u 'admin' -P 'public'

Subscribe

mqttx sub -t 'hello' -h 'broker.emqx.io' -p 1883

Publish

# Publish a single message
mqttx pub -t 'hello' -h 'broker.emqx.io' -p 1883 -m 'from MQTTX CLI'

# Publish multiple messages (multiline)
mqttx pub -t 'hello' -h 'broker.emqx.io' -p 1883 -s -M

Benchmark

# Connect Benchmark
mqttx bench conn -c 5000

# Subscribe Benchmark
mqttx bench sub -c 5000 -t bench/%i

# Publish Benchmark
mqttx bench pub -c 5000 -t bench/%i

Simulate

# Specify a local built-in scenario and start the simulation
mqttx simulate -sc tesla -c 10

# Specify a scenario file and start the simulation
mqttx simulate -f <scenario file path> -c 10

# List the built-in scenarios
mqttx ls -sc

Version Check

mqttx check

Use

mqttx --help

Connection

mqttx conn --help

Subscribe

mqttx sub --help

Publish

mqttx pub --help

Benchmark

The bench command is used to test the performance of the broker. It has basically the same as the normal command options, the following will only list the new or changed options.

Connect Benchmark

mqttx bench conn --help

Subscribe Benchmark

mqttx bench sub --help

Publish Benchmark

mqttx bench pub --help

Typical stress test scenario

Connection test

Create 10000 connections at a rate of one connection every 10ms, with client ID mqttx-bench-%i:

mqttx bench conn -c 10000 -i 10 -I "mqttx-bench-%i"

If you are using EMQX, you can check the number of connections in EMQX after all connections have been established via EMQX Dashboard or by running ./bin/emqx_ctl listeners to see the information about the number of connections in EMQX.

tcp:default
  listen_on       : :1883
  acceptors       : 16
  proxy_protocol  : false
  running         : true
  current_conn    : 10000
  max_conns       : 1024000

Throughput test

Start 500 clients, subscribe to topic mqttx/bench/t:

mqttx bench sub -c 500 -t mqttx/bench/t

Then start 20 publishers, publishing messages to the topic mqttx/bench/t at a rate of 10 messages per second with the message mqttx bench test:

mqttx bench pub -c 20 -im 100 -t mqttx/bench/t -m "mqttx bench test"

Then, go back to the subscribing client, you can see the total number of messages received and the real-time message rate:

Received total: 10989500, rate: 100000/s

Simulate

For simulating MQTT publish message in specific scenarios.

It has basically the same as the Publish Benchmark command options, the following will only list the new or changed options.

mqttx simulate --help

One of the --scenario and --file parameters must be specified, and if both are specified, the --file parameter is preferred.

Custom IoT Data Script

Example:

/**
 * MQTTX Scenario file example
 * 
 * This script generates random temperature and humidity data.
 */
function generator (faker, options) {
  return {
    // If no topic is returned, use the topic in the command line parameters.
    // Topic format: 'mqttx/simulate/myScenario/' + clientId,
    message: JSON.stringify({
      temp: faker.datatype.number({ min: 20, max: 80 }),  // Generate a random temperature between 20 and 80.
      hum: faker.datatype.number({ min: 40, max: 90 }),   // Generate a random humidity between 40 and 90.
    })
  }
}
// Export the scenario module
module.exports = {
  name: 'myScenario',  // Name of the scenario
  generator,          // Generator function
}

For more examples and detailed editing guides, please refer to the scripts-example in the MQTTX GitHub repository, or see how to use faker.js to generate various types of random data.

Built-in Scenarios

MQTTX CLI has built-in some common scenarios, which can be specified by the --scenario parameter, for example:

mqttx simulate --scenario tesla

You can use the ls command to list all the built-in scenarios:

mqttx ls --scenarios

This command will output a table that shows the name and description of each built-in scenario. If you want to use one of them in the simulate command, simply specify the scenario name in the --scenario option:

mqttx simulate --scenario <SCENARIO_NAME>

List of built-in scenarios:

List

The list command provides an overview of available resources.

Currently, it supports listing built-in scenarios.

mqttx list --help

Configuration

MQTTX CLI supports the import and export of configurations, so that users can save command parameters to a local configuration file for future use.

The configuration file supports json and yaml formats, and the default path is ./mqttx-cli-config.json.

Here is an example of exporting and importing configurations for the conn command:

Export configuration

# Save to default path
mqttx conn --save

# Save to specified path
mqttx conn --save ../custom/mqttx-cli.json

# Save to specified path and specify the format as yaml
mqttx conn --save ../custom/mqttx-cli.yaml

Import configuration

# Import configuration from default path
mqttx conn --config

# Import configuration from specified path
mqttx conn --config ../custom/mqttx-cli.json

# Import configuration from specified path and specify the format as yaml
mqttx conn --config ../custom/mqttx-cli.yaml

Data Pipeline

MQTTX CLI provides a simple way to manage and pipeline MQTT data. Its clean mode and jq eliminate the need for complex coding to process MQTT data.

For example, to subscribe and extract an MQTT packet's payload or restructure data:

mqttx sub -t topic --output-mode clean | jq '.payload'

mqttx sub -t topic --output-mode clean | jq '{topic, payload, retain: .packet.retain, userProperties: .packet.properties.userProperties}'

This example shows how to leverage the functionality of MQTTX CLI, jq and other tools to quickly and efficiently build pipelines for acquiring and processing IoT data.